PR and Marketing Tools

Who DOESN’T need funding for an awesome idea? How about $1000 to get you started.

Sound good?

Then find your local chapter of The Awesome Foundation, and if it doesnt’ exist, create it.

Why, because it’s, well, awesome.

30 people get together every month and raise a total of $1000 which they putin a paper bag. People submit their ideas and one of them is chosen to receive the $1000.

Here is a video from Awesome Toronto’s first winner selection with their first five finalists, one of whom was selected from this pitch session:

http://awesometo.wordpress.com/

What does this have to do with PR? Everything.

PR used to be about press releases and getting journalists to write about you. That’s still part of it. But just a part of it. There is so much more to PR today. The tools are available for anyone to reach the people they need directly, including influencers who can bring others to appreciate your point of view.

And engaging your local chapter of the Awesome Foundation in your project is a great idea. Members are engaged, dynamic and they want to support and share, well, your awesomness. Even if you don’t win, you may well find new supporters, partners and funders.

People share things they think are awesome through social media. They tell their friends, they want to be part of it, they want to help. And media are always on the look out for awesome ideas to talk about – and getting and awesome foundation grant has the stamp of awesomeness all over it.

The Awesome Foundation isn’t bureacratic, centralized or deeply formal. It’s a good idea that’s spreading. And anyone can be part of it. You too can help shape your city by funding what’s awesome or creating something awesome that others want to support too.

So go ahead. Share your awesome idea with the world. It may just win you $1000.

It’s a relatively new concept, so if you’re asking “hey, just what is brand journalism,” you’re not alone.

Brand journalism essentially embeds a journalist (in my view, a former journalist) within a company to help the company tell better stories and create content that adds value to the reader, viewer or listener.

The idea is to create content that meaningfully engages the audience in ways that don’t leave them feeling like someone is trying to sell them something. It is a different kind of content from that which is in a press release, but it is a type of PR content that PR and marketing practitioners manage or create.

A company will hire hire a journalist who is not affiliated with any one news outlet to create the content, relying on their skills to tell more engaging stories and create multi-media content. PR departments get journalism quality stories that look and feel like real journalism.

But they aren’t journalism. And they aren’t because the journalist is on the company’s payroll, which, removes any possibility of any real sense of objectivity.

That’s not to say they aren’t bringing a great many of their journalistic skills to bear. That isn’t to say they aren’t great journalists, maybe even brilliant journalists, but in this role, they are not journalists. They have transitioned to to a new career in PR and marketing.

They are performing a paid service to help certain messages about a brand to resonate within target audiences.That’s not a journalism.

Many will disagree with me, especially those within the PR community who are promoting issues and products that get push back. Hiring a journalist to create their content gives it the aura of a third party endorsement. But it’s in appearance only, and it’s spin, since the creator of the content is on the company’s payroll.

What’s the difference?

Call up a journalist to ask for a correction because he didn’t write the story according to the press release, and there’s a mighty fine chance your story will get killed.

Steven Rosen is a business coach and mentor specializing in sales and performance. He coaches executives and emerging executives into achieving much greater results for themselves and their companies, and has coached whole sales teams to greater profitability.

Steve has provided invaluable coaching to me over the years, and swell guy that he is, he jotted down a few thoughts that both he and I hope will be helpful to you too.

The Focus Factor: Achieving the Success You So Desire

By Steven Rosen, MBA,

There are two concepts that I would like to share with you that I believe can help you achieve greater success in your life. The first concept is focus and how many of us are suffering from a lack of focus. The second concept is about understanding what success really means.

In today’s highly demanding technology driven world, many people are expressing feelings of being overwhelmed, stressed, depressed and unable to focus. Like most busy people you get sucked into the daily minutia. The day to day demands of business, emails, meetings and phone calls get the best of us. This constant flow of “stuff” coming at us often interferes with that “good” feeling of achievement. The reality is that this is all busy work. What percentage of emails and voice messages actually impact our goals?

As a result of continuous information overload and multiple demands we lose focus on what is truly important to us. The people who can stay focused are the ones who are going to achieve greater success and lead more fulfilling lives. Therefore the ability to stay focused is the key factor for success in today is rapidly changing and increasingly demanding world.

We are all interested in being successful, yet many of us don’t really know what success means or how to achieve it.

The question then becomes, what is success? If you define success by the amount of money you earn or the type of car you drive, there is always someone who is making more money than you, some who has a bigger house, a more expensive car or the latest high end gadget. Success when measured by material things is very empty. You can never really feel successful if you compare yourself to others.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines success as “The achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted.”

In my opinion, success is about achieving the goals you have set for yourself. Based on this definition we can all achieve success.

I have created a simple yet effective formula for success. I call this the Focus Factor.

The Focus Factor is made up of 5 simple steps that can help you live the life you desire and allow you to feel the emotions that come with achieving the success you desire.

Step 1: Define the What

What is success for you? Is it:

Living a healthy and long life.

Doing what you love and looking forward to the daily experience of doing it.

Achieving lifelong dreams and ambitions, working towards something you are passionate about.

Do you know what you need to do to be successful? The challenge for many of us is that we know what we need to do but we don’t follow through. Have you taken time to think about your goals for the next year, either career or personal? How would you describe your personal grand slam? What would make you the MVP in your organization? Please take a couple minutes, close your eyes and consider the successes you would like to achieve in the next year. Visualize how you would feel achieving these successes. Now, commit to the process and write these successes down on a piece of paper. Decide on two or three outcomes you would like to achieve.

Now that you have decided what success looks like for you, go on to step two.

Step 2: Understand the Why

Why are you motivated to achieve your success goals? What are the reasons, the burning desires that make these success goals important to you? You need to tap into why these goals are so vital. I am not talking about financial successes and what they can buy, but about your psyche. What internal feelings or needs would be fulfilled by achieving your success goals? Is it recognition, sense of pride, praise, rewards for success, a feeling of self-competence and effort, a desire to be effective or to make a difference?

Step 3: Figure out the How

You know your success goals, why they are important to you and what motivates you to achieve them. The next question is the tough one. How are you going to achieve your goals? These are your tactics: What two or three things must you focus on to achieve this success? What are the most powerful actions that will lead to your success? When it comes to expending energy and effort which activities will provide you with the greatest return towards achieving your goals?

The most important piece of this focus reflection exercise is to write down all your thoughts and communicate them to someone on your team. The act of writing turns your plan into action.

How do you create the impetus to achieve your goals? The time you take to write down your successes, internal motivation and actions will all contribute to your success and you will have a 50% chance of making it happen.

Step 4 Establish a completion date

We all need deadlines. The key here is to establish the date you would like to complete each of the “how’s”. This will help keep you on target. Executing your plan with a sense of urgency and avoiding the many daily distractions is critical. Procrastination is the nemesis of success.

Step 5: Commit! Commit! Commit!

Commit your goals to paper.

Commit your goals to someone who will keep you accountable to achieving them.

Commitment is key.

To increase the likelihood of achieving your success goals you should commit them to a colleague or supervisor.

If you are really motivated, hire me as your coach and I will hold you accountable to the process of staying focused on achieving success.

Succeed

Success is a function of achieving goals we set for ourselves. Deciding and achieving the outcomes we truly desire is the definition of success.

Wishing you all the success you deserve and desire.

Steven Rosen, MBA is a sales management expert who helps companies transforms sales managers into great sales coaches. Steven’s works with sales executives to; hire top performing sales reps and managers, develop their team into top sales managers and achieve greater personal and professional success.

He is the CEO of STAR Results, author of many articles in the areas of sales management coaching and sales management training. He is a member of Top Sales Experts. Steven’s mission is to inspire sales leaders, managers and sales people to achieve their full potential. He can be reached at steven@starresults.com or 905-737-4548.

Slideshare is a site dedicated to letting people share slides. Often, those slides have been created in Powerpoint or Keynote, however, Slideshare has other handy uses. For example, you may want to put a video on your Linkedin page. You actually can’t do that right through the application, but you can drop in one slide housed on slideshare that has your video as the content of that one slide. To do that, you must have a paid Slideshare account.